Cryptocurrency analyst Benjamin Cowen, founder and CEO of Into The Cryptoverse warns Ether (ETH) may have further to fall before altcoins can mount a sustainable comeback.
In his latest market analysis, Cowen says ETH’s continued decline against Bitcoin reflects broader economic forces — and a true reversal likely depends on the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.
“The first thing to note is that ETH is better observed on its Bitcoin pair than its USD pair,” Cowen explained, arguing that ETH/BTC reveals deeper cycle trends.
According to Cowen, Ethereum’s struggles this cycle are closely tied to the Fed’s quantitative tightening (QT) — a stark contrast to earlier bull runs.
Quantitative tightening is when the Federal Reserve reduces its balance sheet by selling government bonds or letting them mature — effectively pulling money out of the financial system. This tends to raise interest rates and reduce liquidity, which can hurt risk assets like crypto.
“ETH continues to drop against Bitcoin primarily due to ongoing quantitative tightening,” he said. In past cycles, ETH/BTC didn’t find a bottom until QT ended — something that hasn’t happened yet. Though the Fed recently slowed QT from $60 billion to $40 billion per month, Cowen compares it to wind still blowing in the wrong direction: “Even though it’s not blowing as hard, the wind is still blowing in the wrong direction.”
Cowen believes ETH may need to fall another 40% to 50% to reach its “home” — defined as a lower logarithmic regression trendline. This key level marked major cycle bottoms in December 2016 and December 2019.
ETH is currently down 37% from its high, and Cowen’s risk models suggest it may still need to reach between $1,300 and $1,800, with “home” sitting around $1,589.
Drawing parallels to the 1990 and 1998 stock market dips, Cowen notes that similar “triple top” patterns and economic uncertainty preceded major rebounds — but only after painful drawdowns.
“It always feels like this time is different for Ethereum,” Cowen concluded. “But in reality, you can see it’s happened every single time so far. And this time it looks to be happening once more.”